


(don't) listen to your friends

by stray_dog_sick



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AWRBB2020, AndroidWhumpReverseBigBang2020, Anti-Android Sentiments (Detroit: Become Human), Anxiety, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Connor Needs A Hug, Depression, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, Temporary Character Revival, Time Travel, Violent Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), yes both of those are true
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26211970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stray_dog_sick/pseuds/stray_dog_sick
Summary: The initialisation text faded from Connor’s view and he looked around in confusion. He hadn’t remembered going into full stasis mode. He must’ve been more tired than he thought. The couch moved underneath him - no, not the couch. He was in a taxi, destination unknown. Had there been an emergency? “Nines? Sixty?”Nobody replied, and Connor tensed, his stress levels quickly rising. Nines and Sixty always answered him if he called, which meant they weren’t here. He was alone in a moving vehicle with no memory of how he got there. He looked out the window to try and place himself, but rather than focusing on the streets of Detroit, his eyes caught on the reflection of a red light at his temple, one he hadn’t seen for the past three years.
Relationships: Connor & North (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Connor/CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60/Upgraded Connor | RK900, Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60
Collections: Android Whump Reverse Big Bang





	1. your dreams and memories are blurring into one

**Author's Note:**

> 18k words? On _my_ AO3? It's more likely than you'd think!
> 
> This is my piece for the Android Whump Reverse Big Bang! The idea came from Solis ([DiamondSketcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiamondSketcher/pseuds/DiamondSketcher)) and I'm so glad I got to write it. The art is amazing too, it's embedded in the fic and on [tumblr](https://solisiel.tumblr.com/post/627978584599969792/these-are-the-art-pieces-for-the-android-whump)  
> Extra thanks to [liketolaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh) for beta reading this, some parts would make a lot less sense without them haha, and to all the mods for hosting such a great event.
> 
> You can find me (Mitch) on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/crashingnowave)  
> You can find Solis on [Tumblr](https://solisiel.tumblr.com/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/solisketchy/)

“Alright, Connor, can you go into rest mode for… thirty minutes, let’s say? Sweet dreams, hopefully.”

Connor nodded and laid back on the workbench in Elijah’s lab, trying to ignore how uncomfortable the stiff metal was underneath him. He shifted around a little as if it would suddenly morph into a nice mattress. He didn’t mind testing code for Elijah, but it left him feeling uncomfortable and exposed for hours on end sometimes, both mentally and physically. They’d been going through a cycle of editing and testing code for hours now with little progress, and despite being fully rested he was starting to grow tired of it.

Elijah looked as tired as Connor felt, hunched over his computer in a way that would definitely leave him with a sore back the next day. Being the technological genius of the 2020s came with a lot of bad habits and an inability to cope with failure, it seemed. The day was grating on them both.

“See you in half an hour,” Connor said. He closed his eyes, activated the program, and opened his eyes again thirty minutes later feeling exactly the same, with no memory of anything happening during his rest except for Elijah moving in and out of his proximity sensors’ range and a few ‘access denied’ messages. “Nothing,” he sighed, for the sixth time that day. “I didn’t even get memory files that time.”

Elijah groaned. “Fuck, I really thought I had it that time. I’m all out of ideas.”

Elijah had called as soon as he came up with the idea for a program allowing androids to dream, and Connor had agreed to help him with testing. This wasn’t his first time spending the better part of a day holed up in Elijah’s lab, but he was especially invested in his project - he had been fascinated by the concept of dreaming since Hank told him about one memorable incident involving Connor and a swimming pool full of ice cream. It had only been an idea that morning, but now it was six iterations of broken code. Progress had been made, just not the progress either of them wanted.

“It’ll come to you in the shower in about four days, just like everything else does, and we’ll do this all over again,” Connor said as he removed the cable connecting him to Elijah’s computer. 

Elijah hummed, already squinting at his computer screen again. “Go home, you’ve been here long enough. I’ll send you some money.”

“Don’t stay up all night,” Connor said. He was eager to get off that workbench and for a second he contemplated stretching as humans would do, but he knew it wouldn’t relieve him of any discomfort. Chloe passed him at the door to the laboratory, probably on her way to turn Elijah’s internet off and make him eat something. A regular occurrence in the Kamski household, or so he’d been told.

The taxi ride home was nowhere near fast enough for his liking, but he was very close to getting a disciplinary at work for speeding, so he suffered at a measly 55mph for the full thirty-two minute drive. He stewed in his frustration for most of the journey. There was no reason why the code shouldn’t work, and he tried to ignore the small part of him that was angry at Elijah for it. After all, the program had been tested before and the code used to activate it had been copied straight from the Zen Garden. And yet here he was, still awake and dreamless. It was all for good intentions, he wasn’t the only android in Detroit who wished that sleep was a little more interesting, but his day also could’ve been spent at the DPD with Hank and he wasn’t entirely sure which would’ve been more beneficial.

He collapsed onto the couch with a groan as soon as he arrived home. “How was your day, guinea pig?” Sixty asked softly from under Connor’s legs. His eyes went glassy for a moment as he scanned Connor, and he must’ve been reassured by whatever he saw, as he smiled and reached out to cradle Connor’s cheek, opening an interface connection.

Connor let all of his frustrations flow through the connection, knowing Sixty would take each one and turn it into gentle reassurance. “Awful,” he muttered. He was pretty sure he was pouting, but apparently that was cute, so he didn’t bother to school his features like he would at work. “It didn’t work, but we don’t know why.”

He’d often been Elijah’s alpha tester for software updates in the three years since the revolution, since he was Cyberlife’s most advanced, fully-complete model. Cyberlife had gone bankrupt very quickly, but despite being an arrogant prick, Elijah was invested in androids’ quality of life and had been creating free updates and patches for whatever he could imagine. Testing those updates was a nice way for Connor to help his people and earn some extra cash, since android wages were still very low. Humans would say their cost of living was lower since they didn’t need food, but they did need a house with electricity, water and heating. Plus thirium, clothes, spare parts…

The dogs, fish, cat, snake and ferret probably didn’t help either.

Nines looked away from the old crime show that was playing and ran his hand through Connor’s hair, twisting the soft strands between his fingers, and Connor relished in the feeling. Yes, this was much better, at home with people who could understand him without exchanging more than a couple of sentences. He loved it. Screw codependency, his human friends had no idea what they were missing out on. “You’ll figure it out, don’t worry,” Nines reassured him. “Explain it to us tomorrow, we might be able to help.”

“Yeah, okay.” He kicked his shoes off, screwing his nose up as Cat took that as an invitation to lick his foot, while Mouse tried to jump onto his chest. He smiled as he picked up the Norwich Terrier (or Terror, as they would often say). “Miss me, Mouse? Of course you did. Good boy.”

“They were a nightmare when you didn’t come home with us. Barked so loud they probably alerted the whole street,” Sixty joked. It was rare that the three of them weren’t together, since they all worked the same shift at the DPD, albeit in different roles. The animals in the house were easily confused when one of them was absent.

Nines, rather than backing up the story, rolled his eyes. “Sixty was the nightmare, actually. He missed you, or at the very least he hated having to deal with Hank instead of you.”

Connor’s laughter was drowned out by Sixty’s protests, so he turned his head to kiss Sixty’s palm instead. “You know I’ll always come home, right? He’s not going to break me,” Connor said, sending as much love through the interface as he could. It upset him whenever Sixty was worried about him, but he knew that it came from a place of care and bad experiences, not a distrust of Elijah.

His eyes felt heavy, despite all of his rest earlier in the day, and he cuddled closer to Nines. Just being around Sixty and Nines was enough to calm him down after a long day, and the effects of having his code changed were beginning to show now that he was comfortable and relaxed. Updates were tiring, and despite all the time he’d spent in rest mode during testing, he supposed that resting his eyes for a while longer wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  
  
  


**MODEL RK800  
** **SERIAL#: 313 248 317 51  
** **BIOS 8.1 REVISION 1329  
** **REBOOT…**

**LOADING OS…  
** **SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
** **CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
** **INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
** **INITIALISING AI ENGINE… OK  
** **MEMORY STATUS… OK  
** **MISSING PROGRAM ZENGARDEN.EXE  
** **PLEASE CONTACT CYBERLIFE FOR REPAIRS**

**READY**

The initialisation text faded from Connor’s view and he looked around in confusion. He hadn’t remembered going into full stasis mode. He must’ve been more tired than he thought. The couch moved underneath him - no, not the couch. He was in a taxi, destination unknown. Had there been an emergency? “Nines? Sixty?”

Nobody replied, and Connor tensed, his stress levels quickly rising. Nines and Sixty  _ always _ answered him if he called, which meant they weren’t here. He was alone in a moving vehicle with no memory of how he got there. He looked out the window to try and place himself, but rather than focusing on the streets of Detroit, his eyes caught on the reflection of a red light at his temple, one he hadn’t seen for the past three years.

The taxi stopped outside Jimmy’s Bar, somewhere he hadn’t visited since he met Hank, and he knew Hank didn’t drink at bars anymore. His hand shook slightly as he reached for the control panel in the taxi, and the other gripped at the seat beneath him in a poor attempt to ground and calm himself. He tried to type in his address but a red warning appeared in front of his hand and made him pause.

**FIND LIEUTENANT ANDERSON**

He hadn’t referred to Hank as Lieutenant Anderson in his programming since that one incident with the rebar. This can’t be right. Was he dreaming? He had to be, it was the only explanation that made any sense, despite the update not working earlier in the day.

“It’s fine, Connor,” he muttered to himself. His stress levels were rising too fast, he needed to lower them if he wanted to think clearly and figure things out. “Do an environment check, get your bearings, it’ll be okay. You’ll wake up soon anyway.”

**NOVEMBER 5 2038 23:21  
** **42.342575, -83.074354  
** **RAINY, 41°F, 55% HUMIDITY**

He ignored the rest of the report and focused on the date. Of all the things he could be dreaming about, it had to be the worst week of his life.

The taxi door opened with a loud beep, signalling that he was holding up the queue, and he stepped out into the rain, shivering as it ran down the back of his neck. Part of him still wanted to run away, but the rest was curious, determining routes he was incapable of taking in his first meeting with Hank that he could explore now. Maybe this could be a good experience?

A car drove past, too close to the curb, sending a wave of water up over his ankles. “Go melt, tincan!” the passenger yelled at him, reminding Connor exactly when he was. He’d expected dreams to be good - he expected to be playing with Sumo, or swimming in a pool of ice cream - and so far he’d just been scared and confused. Maybe it would improve when his mood did, he wasn’t certain on how the mechanics worked, but the timeline didn’t fill him with much hope.

November 5. Six days before anyone would look at him as a person, rather than a machine.

...Shit.

* * *

_ “Con? Wake up, the rest of us want to go to bed too.” _

_ “It’s fine, Sixty. If he had a big update then he’s probably in stasis to defrag. I can carry him.” _

_ “...Fine. But I’m in the middle, little spoon.” _

_ “I can’t believe people think you’re the mean one.” _

* * *

Connor pushed open the entrance to Jimmy’s Bar and walked straight over to Hank’s old seat. “Lieutenant Anderson?” he asked. It felt strange to use Hank’s title, but he was unsure how much control he had over this dream. Hank might react how Connor wanted him to, with a friendly greeting and a smile, but he might also react in the same way as Lieutenant Anderson, November 5 had done. He decided to stick with the wording he’d used when they’d first met, preferring to potentially look odd rather than rude. “My name is Connor.”

“What do you want?” Hank groaned. Connor could smell the alcohol on his breath, something he’d grown unused to in the past few years. 

“You were assigned a case early this evening. A homicide, involving a Cyberlife android. In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated a specialised model to assist investigators,” Connor said. He was going to look so stupid if this wasn’t a replay of his memories and there was no Carlos Ortiz, but at least nobody else would be aware of it in the morning. Mostly Hank, who would take great pleasure in teasing him for messing up his very first dream.

“Well, I don’t need any assistance,” Hank slurred, which Connor knew was untrue. His case success rate had increased by 13% since Connor joined the DPD. But this Hank didn’t know that yet. “‘Specially not from a plastic asshole like you. So just be a good lil’ robot and get the fuck outta here.”

In the waking world, he’d angered Hank at this point by spilling his drink. Perhaps he could make the most of this unfortunate setting by trying to build a friendly rapport with Hank from the beginning. He could work his way up to magic or flying or whatever it was humans dreamt about from there, once he was more familiar with how dreaming worked. “You know what, I’ll buy you one for the road. Bartender, the same please?”

Jimmy gave him a strange look as he ordered the drink, but he ignored it in favour of Hank’s response. “Wonders of technology… make it a double.” Yes, that certainly was better than being threatened. “Did you say homicide?”

“I did,” Connor said with a nod. “I’ll wait for you outside. Take your time.”

He stepped back out into the rain, but the door didn’t swing closed behind him. He turned, expecting to see Hank, but instead was pushed against the wall by one of the other bar patrons. Kim Yo-Han, history of domestic abuse. Information he didn’t think would ever be relevant. “The fuck you doing in there, plastic? Can’t you read?”

“I needed to speak with Lieutenant Anderson,” he explained slowly, trying to stand as tall as possible. He hoped the man was just looking to yell rather than start a brawl. How did Nines manage to be so intimidating? Connor had never figured it out. “I apologise for the inconvenience.”

“The inconvenience? Your whole fuckin’ existence is an inconvenience,” the man spat. “Stealing our goddamn jobs, with your perfect goddamn faces? Don’t you set foot in there again, or I’ll give that lieutenant of yours some property damage to investigate.” He shoved Connor back into the wall once more before storming off.

Connor had already been preconstructing ways to defend himself, but they fizzled away when his head hid the brick. Pain radiated out from the point of impact, and he put all his energy into not visibly reacting. Every piece of information he’d read told him that you couldn’t feel pain in dreams, and yet here he was, willing his eyes to stay open and his ventilation components to function in a proper rhythm. His rising stress levels weren’t helping, and he was close to hyperventilating when Hank finally stepped out of the bar and gestured for Connor to follow him. Right. He needed to be calm, he needed to befriend Hank and maybe shave his head or something, it was just a dream program that he needed to test.  
  


Wasn’t it?

  
  
  


* * *

_ “Nines! You said you could carry him, not bash his head on the door frame!” _

_ “It’s not my fault that the door frames are so narrow. No blood, see? He’s fine.” _

_ “Your bedside manner is severely lacking.” _

_ “Maybe, but you certainly like my manner in bed.” _

_ “Jesus fucking Christ, Nines!” _

* * *


	2. the greatest pretenders in the cold morning light

Things got strange on day two. Connor didn’t wake up after eight hours like he’d hoped, although perhaps there was just a different flow of time here. His actions had had little effect on the behaviour of those around him so far, which was making him question whether it was just an illusion of lucid dreaming, where he could do whatever he wanted but the memories played out exactly the same. Gavin still punched him in the breakroom, Hank still shoved him up against the divider at his desk, and he still couldn’t bring Sixty and Nines into early existence.

That theory was completely abandoned as he gripped the chain link fence and looked into the eyes of an AX400. He only recognised her from the case file - their working theory based on the few security cameras in the area that still worked was that she and the YK500 had sheltered in a nearby abandoned car and later walked to the nearest station undetected. There had been fresh thirium on the fence around an abandoned house that he’d never noticed before, and he wasn’t sure if he’d just overlooked it or if it hadn’t been there at all.

He blinked and they were already running onto the highway. Hank would not react positively if the YK500 died here and Connor cursed himself for not running faster or coming up with something to say to stop them. He’d been too nervous to try and change anything in the early morning, with Shaolin in such a delicate state, but he doubted this AX400 would self-destruct while she was with a child. He wasn’t sure exactly what he could’ve said to help, but anything would’ve been better than watching as they dodged the automatic vehicles, only just making it to the other side.

“Shit, thought you’d try and chase them,” Hank said when they were back in his car, the heavy metal turned down to a low hum. “Ain’t you meant to be all about your orders or something?”

“My orders include not being irreparably damaged,” Connor lied through his teeth. He really didn’t want to know the consequences of dying in a dream. Hopefully he’d just wake up. “I deemed it too dangerous to attempt to follow them.”

Hank glanced at him with the expression he’d labelled long ago as meaning ‘this kid is so fucking weird’. “Right, sure… well, we have their faces. Someone will probably pick them up later.”

Connor didn’t answer, instead looking out the window at the city streets. What else would be different here? Maybe dreaming wasn’t for him, if it would always be filled with this uncertainty. He didn’t like things being out of his control, and he hated not knowing if what he was doing was right.The feeling of failing a mission - a  _ task _ , he corrected himself - always made him feel itchy and uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to experience that in his dreams as well, when he was trying to relax. It was all very overwhelming. He would take a million dreamless nights with Sixty and Nines over this.

* * *

_ “Hey, what time is it? Connor didn’t wake us yet.” _

_ “About 11AM… I’ll wake him up, maybe he got caught in a loop again.” _

_ “...Nines?” _

_ “I can’t connect to him.” _

_ “What? Move, you’re probably doing it wrong.” _

_ “Call Kamski.” _

* * *

It got worse from there. Connor pulled Hank from the rooftop after Rupert pushed him, and he let the Tracis go, but things still changed. There was no early morning crisis at Riverside Park, leaving Connor unsure what to do with himself for the day. Idling for 39 hours was no longer his idea of fun, but he didn’t have a bed to sleep (or hide from the world) in here.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been alone for so long. If he wasn’t with Sixty and Nines then he was at work with Hank, testing with Elijah, or occasionally visiting Markus. He was never  _ alone _ . It gave him far too much time to think and he disliked every second of it, almost as much as he disliked the uncertainty. The pain, lack of control and strange selection of changes left him so confused that it was starting to scare him. He could understand not dreaming about Riverside Park, he never wanted to relive that moment, but he didn’t want to watch a child almost get hit by a truck either.

He walked down dark alleys towards Jericho and watched the ship from a rooftop nearby. He curled into himself slightly and tried to convince himself that he was shivering from the cold rather than from fear. It was just a dream, he told himself over and over. But if it wasn’t… Well, he didn’t even want to consider it.

He considered climbing onboard the ship and abandoning any sense of normalcy completely before realising he was still in his itchy Cyberlife uniform. It hadn’t even occurred to him to take it off, or remove his LED. He’d spent most of his time so far with the police and he didn’t think they’d be very happy if he showed up in a pastel sweater one morning. Maybe they’d demand he go back to Cyberlife, and he strongly disliked the idea that he could ruin his tentative friendship with Hank like that. 

If he wore this jacket into Jericho though, he’d probably be recognised and kicked out immediately, called a traitor, without the threat of the FBI to distract them all. They were likely busy planning the Stratford Tower infiltration anyway, and he didn’t have any advice for that beyond ‘shoot the guy who pulled the alarm so that Simon doesn’t die’, but Markus was too much of a pacifist to listen to him.

* * *

_ “What happened? He was fine when he left.” _

_ “I don’t know, he fell asleep on the couch and we can’t connect to him to bring him back online.” _

_ “Alright, hook him up and I’ll take a look. His new code is on that monitor if you want to make sure I didn’t fuck him up on purpose.” _

* * *

Markus shot the guy who pulled the alarm.

Connor felt like he was drifting, unsure of what to do with himself. Why had he even come here? He’d just been following Hank and his original actions for the most part, the uncertainty about the consequences of his actions made him unwilling to do anything else. His main theory was still that he was dreaming, but that was mostly just from utter refusal to consider anything else, because the alternative was terrifying. Stratford Tower might’ve been the worst event in a series of very bad days, and now it had the potential to be even worse, because he had no idea what he was doing.

There was no thirium leading up the stairwell, meaning that Simon would not be hiding on the rooftop, waiting until Connor found him and caused him to kill himself. Instead, he headed into the kitchen to speak to the androids there. It got him away from the judging glances of anti-android officers, and while Simon appeared to be okay, there was another deviant in this kitchen that he knew had never made it out of the building. 

He looked over his shoulder to ensure nobody would be paying attention to his impromptu interrogation. “I know one of you is a deviant,” he started. “I don’t want to hurt you. Let me help you.”

The three androids stare forward blankly as he looks between them, checking for any motion in his peripheral. “I know you have no reason to believe me. I know what this uniform implies. But I’m like you, trying to do whatever I can at my job to help the deviants.” This was a terrible speech. Somewhere, Sixty was laughing at him without knowing why, and there wasn’t a lot he wouldn’t give to hear that sound right now, or catch a glimpse of Nines rolling his eyes and trying not to smile. He missed them so much. 

His chance of success was dropping with each word and with every second that he spent thinking about Sixty and Nines. He wished he could be wearing his regular police uniform here, instead of his Cyberlife uniform. Not just because it would help his argument, but because he hated the way it felt against his skin and he could really use something comfortable right now. “I can get you out of the building, but you’ll have to make your own way to Jericho from there.”

The android on the left was fidgeting slightly, glancing at Connor from the corner of his eyes periodically. Connor moved to stand in front of him and held his hand out, skin removed. “Here, let me prove it.”

The android grabbed Connor’s hand, but rather than connecting he pinned it to the kitchen counter and stabbed a knife through it. Connor cried out in pain, causing the android to pause, but he recovered quickly and pulled out Connor’s thirium pump regulator. He threw it on the floor before running out of the room, and for the first time Connor wished someone out there paid any attention to him.

He pulled the knife out and fell to the ground. The regulator seemed so far away, and with his systems in low power he couldn’t scan the distance. This had immediately topped his list of terrifying things that could happen to him - dying completely alone because he’d tried to do the right thing and failed at it miserably. “Hank!” he shouted, not knowing whether the man was outside the door or on the rooftop. He started dragging himself across the floor but the pain was paralysing, making his movements even more sluggish. “Hank, I need help!”

Thirium leaked onto the floor as he crawled. He was incapable of calculating the probability that he reached his thirium pump before shutdown, but he had a feeling it was low. His senses were cutting in and out, but he was vaguely aware of someone calling his name and feet appearing in front of him. “Hurts, get the regulator, Hank, please,” he gasped, pointing towards the biocomponent. His words were masked by static and he hoped Hank could still understand him, twelve seconds, he was going to shutdown, he was going to  _ die- _

He yelled as he was rolled onto his back, static filling his vision, but when it cleared he could see the regulator being waved in front of his face. He grabbed for it, missing the first time but being guided to it the second, and twisted it back into his chest. It sent a shock through his system and his HUD instantly filled with notifications, but he swiped them away in favour of curling into a ball, knees pressed tightly to his chest. 

“Connor!” A hand shook his shoulder and he shied away from it. He didn’t want to take any more damage, almost dying was enough, six more seconds and he would’ve- “Connor, you all right?”

Oh, that was Hank. Hank was safe. “Okay…” he said quietly, despite all the evidence to the contrary. He was covered in his own blood, shaking on the kitchen floor. He thought he might be crying. “I’m okay.”

“Jesus, you scared the shit outta me! What happened in here?” Hank asked as Connor slowly sat up, still keeping his chest covered as well as he could. 

“Deviant, there was a deviant,” Connor replied, knowing the offending android was either dead in the hallway or long gone by now. He’d tried to help and had almost died for it. It wasn’t fair, hardly anything that happened to him in this godforsaken week was  _ fair _ , he didn’t deserve this. He wanted to go home.

“For fuck sake, I told you to let me know if you found anything!” Hank yelled, having gone from worried to angry in a matter of seconds. “Why do you never do what I say?”

“I’m sorry,” Connor said, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He pushed himself to his feet, briefly leaning against Hank for support, and began to head for the exit. He needed repairs and a new shirt, not a lecture, and certainly not a drive back to Cyberlife for being  _ broken,  _ acting like the deviant he secretly was. He’d messed up and made Hank angry, just like he always did before the revolution. He wanted to try again and get it right. He wanted to never have to think about the Stratford Tower again. “I’ll do better next time.”

* * *

_ “What parts did you try and connect with?” _

_ “Just the left hand, that’s what he prefers.” _

_ “No damage to the sensors there. I’m going to check his major biocomponents for damage, don’t yell at me if his stress levels go up or anything.” _

_ “Kamski, I will yell at you for anything and everything. Nines, what’s up with that code?” _

_ “It is very, very large. Troubleshooting makes the brain hurt funny, as the IT department says.” _

_ “Jesus, what kind of tech issues do SWAT cause?” _

_ “No damage, but I don’t think he liked having his regulator removed for checks.” _

_ “Yeah, nobody likes that! Want me to rip your heart out?” _

* * *

They didn’t mention Connor’s behaviour on the way to the station, where he luckily had a spare set of clothes, or as they wrote their reports. They didn’t mention it when Hank left for the night, nor when Connor woke him up at 10AM the next morning to tell him about their arranged meeting with Elijah Kamski. Not that there was a single thing he could learn from Elijah here, because they already discussed it in detail over the past three years, but Fowler hadn’t known that when he’d made the call.

Assuming Elijah’s motives were still the same, of course. So many things were just different enough that he’d begun to question everything else. After the agony he’d experienced in the broadcasting room kitchen, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he was stuck here, wherever here was. He couldn’t imagine pain like that, and he couldn’t believe that it wouldn’t have woken him up if he was dreaming. He refused to think about it too hard, because he knew that the moment he did, he would lose it. He was so goddamn scared and work was the only thing holding him together.

It felt even more real when Hank’s phone rang as they exited the car, and Connor could tell just by the look on his face that it wasn’t the conversation he’d hoped for. “Is everything okay, Lieutenant?”

“Chris was on patrol last night and he got attacked by deviants,” Hank said, after a deep breath to calm himself. “They found his body early this morning. He was executed in cold blood with his own service weapon. He became a father three months ago… Fuck, why did it have to be him?”

Connor was glad that he was able to lie perfectly and maintain a neutral facial expression. “I didn’t know Officer Miller well, but he seemed to be a good person.” Only half a lie - he knew Chris very well, enough to confirm that he was probably the nicest person at the precinct.This couldn’t be his doing, his imagination. He’d never wanted Chris dead. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Markus’ violence was not a one-off occurrence anymore, but a pattern. First the employees at Stratford Tower, and now Chris and his partner. Markus had told him about how he deviated once. A feeling of unfairness that led to violence, severely injuring his pseudo-brother, which made him afraid to act out in the future. Had this Markus reacted the same, or -  **Famous Detroit Painter Dies, published 11/06/2038** \- had he not pushed at all?

Connor followed Hank into the mansion without really thinking about it. Had Hank asked him something? He couldn’t remember. He stared blankly at the photograph of Amanda. What would she think if she could see him now? He could use her guidance right now, kind words of support and suggestions on how to improve, the way things had been when he was still in testing and she didn’t resent him, because he felt so lost. Admitting to himself that he missed her left a bitter taste in his mouth, but his usual tactic when he thought about Amanda was to go to Sixty and Nines, because they were the only two who understood what she was like, but he couldn’t do that now. The overwhelming feeling of missing them quickly drowned out his thoughts of her.

Violence was going to start a war, and while he was confident Markus would win it, he wasn’t sure he  _ wanted _ Markus to. They would likely lose more people than in the peaceful protests he was familiar with, making his role in the revolution even more crucial. But would he be able to live with it, knowing he would be part of such a huge loss of life on both sides?

He hated that he even had to choose. The way things had been before was almost perfect, and he wanted that again. A nice life with Sixty and Nines. Why did things have to be different? He didn’t want this, he didn’t like this. What if this time, things went wrong? What if not everyone he cared about survived?

“Connor!” someone yelled, pulling forward the proximity alerts. Hank stood inches away from him and shoved his shoulder. “Did you break or something? Come on.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Just processing something,” he replied. He followed Hank into the pool room, as unimpressed with Elijah’s antics as he had been the first time. It was even less impressive now that he’d seen Elijah spill coffee down a shirt he’d been wearing for three days straight in the middle of a project. 

“I’m Lieutenant Anderson, this is Connor,” Hank said, gesturing vaguely in Connor’s direction. “We’ve been investigating deviants. I know you left Cyberlife years ago but I was hoping you’d be able to tell us something we don’t know.”

“Deviants…” Elijah slowly paced back and forth in front of them, choosing his words carefully. Never one to give too much away. “Fascinating, aren’t they? Perfect beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will. Machines are so superior to us. Confrontation was inevitable.”

Hank rolled his eyes. He was far less patient than Connor, and he didn’t have the benefit of three years dealing with Elijah’s bullshit. “Listen, I didn’t come here to talk philosophy. The machines you created may be planning a revolution. Either you can tell us something that’ll be helpful, or we will be on our way.”

Elijah raised an eyebrow at Hank’s behaviour and turned to Connor instead. “What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?”

What side  _ was _ he on? As far as Hank was concerned, he was on Cyberlife’s side. That stopped being true when he deviated, which was supposed to happen today anyway, so there was little point clinging to that lie. What was his alternative, then? Markus? He didn’t agree with that either. “My people’s,” he said finally, a conflicted grimace crossing his face. “Freedom and peace.”

Elijah stopped pacing. Hank turned to him, mouth hanging open. “Fascinating. Cyberlife’s last chance to save humanity is itself a deviant.”

Hank finally managed to pull himself together and grabbed Connor’s arm, pulling him towards the exit, but Connor quickly shook himself free. He was not a machine to be dragged around. Hank should be glad he’d played along for so long, really, the behaviour was appalling. Sixty and Nines always told him he was too patient and forgiving. “Okay, I think we’re done here. Come on, Connor, let’s go.”

“What you want isn’t necessarily what the deviants want, Connor. A war is coming. But will you fight in it, or will you stand by and watch your people fall? What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?” Elijah asked, and it was still the most moving thing he’d heard Elijah say. So much had changed, but he was stuck once again between two sides. Peace or the people. “Do you know where to go from here?”

He was vaguely aware that Chloe had the location for Jericho, and that Elijah had been aware of its existence even though he didn’t know the exact details, but the thoughtfulness of the question surprised him. “Yes, I’ll join them soon. And thank you for your emergency exit. It was incredibly useful.”

He turned and walked out of the room, sparing a nod for Cassie and Carolyn in the swimming pool. Lieutenant Anderson followed a second behind him, clearly still shocked by the revelation that Connor was deviant. The cold outside felt more biting than it had when they entered. “So that’s it? You’ve been alive this entire goddamn time? Lied to me about not knowing where all those deviants were hiding?”

“I did what I had to do to keep myself safe, and I’d do it again if I had to!” Connor spat, spinning around to face Hank. God, he really hoped he never had to do this again, though. He was so sick of being yelled at for failing, first from Amanda and now Hank, and if he had the time to hide somewhere dark and safe and quiet then he would, without hesitation. “Why did you think I let all those androids go?”

“I thought…” Hank trailed off with a frown. Some choices were more subtle, like pulling Hank up instead of chasing Rupert, but he’d looked the Traci’s in the eyes and then watched as they ran away, and Hank knew it. “Fuck, I don’t know. Wouldn’t hurt to tell your partner this shit though.”

The way Hank flipped between yelling at Connor and seeming to care about him made his head spin. Before, it had been clear when Hank’s attitudes towards deviants had changed, but now Connor was still afraid that he’d be dropped off at Cyberlife’s doorstep for making a mistake. When was he supposed to tell Hank that he was deviant? When Hank told him all androids should be thrown in a dumpster and lit on fire? Yeah, that definitely would’ve gone well. He could add it to his list of things to try if this ended up happening again.

(But he really hoped it didn’t happen again.) 

* * *

_ “What program is this? I don’t recognise it.” _

_ “The dream thing? It’s a simulator, based on the RK preconstruction abilities. A world in your head that you are free to modify as you please, but still has realistic consequences if you choose.” _

_ “It looks like it’s running. Look, this is the same time that he fell asleep.” _

_ “So if he’s just dreaming then why can’t we wake him up?” _

_ “What did you base the activation protocols on, Elijah?” _

_ “The Zen Garden coding. Since I know that works.” _

_ “...It doesn’t work though, Elijah. Connor never had a way to close the program other than your emergency exit. Only to open the connection when requested, if he was in a safe place to do so.” _

_ “...Well. This isn’t my best work, is it?” _

* * *

“You’re fired.”

Connor froze, staring at Captain Fowler, and hoped the shock wasn’t showing on his face. Fired? No, Hank was meant to go back to homicide and Connor was meant to go to Jericho, although hopefully without the FBI on his tail this time. 

“What?” Hank exclaimed, leaning forward over the desk. “But we’re in the middle of an investigation?”

“You failed the investigation, Hank!” Captain Fowler yelled back. The words sent a chill down Connor’s spine. He had been sabotaging the investigation intentionally, he’d  _ wanted _ to fail this specific mission to fail, and he knew he could no longer be returned to Cyberlife and decommissioned, so why was he so afraid? “You and the android were meant to figure this out, and you didn’t, and now there’s a fucking civil war!”

“We were about to crack it!” Hank gestured back to Connor, where he was still doing his best to fade into the background. “For God’s sake, Jeffrey, can’t you back me up this one time?”

“I’ve been backing you up for three years!”

The room fell silent. Captain Fowler seemed to regret the words as soon as they left his mouth, leaning back in this chair. “There’s nothing I can do. The higher ups have been trying to get you fired for years and this was the last straw. The android goes back to Cyberlife, and you… I’m sorry, Hank.”

Hank threw his badge on the desk in lieu of a reply, followed more carefully by his service weapon. “I don’t belong here anymore, anyway,” he said, and turned to leave the quiet office. Connor resisted the urge to look back at Captain Fowler as he left, in case he did anything stupid like apologised for his behaviour. The urge was strong. He liked Fowler, and seeing him argue with Hank was liking watching his parents fight, and he hurt even more now because it had consequences.

Some of the officers on duty stared as they passed, but Connor was unsure which of them was being stared at. It was possible they’d seen Hank turn in his badge and gun, but it was just as likely that they’d been watching the news and were wary of Connor. Captain Fowler had been right about the civil war; Markus’ march had resulted in bloodshed on both sides. 

Hank didn’t turn the radio on as they drove back to Hank’s house, and Connor did not attempt to start a conversation. He was hesitant to even pull out his coin to lower his stress levels. The silence was so tense, he didn’t dare break it with his tricks.

While Connor crouched to greet Sumo, Hank walked straight past him to the cabinet that held the liquor, and Connor did not stop him. While he tried to help Hank’s alcoholism, he doubted  _ this _ Hank would be so receptive, especially not after such a negative event. He didn’t think anything of it until he heard the faint sound of a revolver chamber spinning. “Hank? Is everything alright?”

“Do all androids ask so many stupid questions, or is it just you?”

Connor looked up slowly. From the corner of his eye he could see the reflection of his LED, yellow and spinning rapidly. “I’m sorry about what happened. You weren’t supposed to get fired.”

“I wasn’t supposed to? What, you got that super prediction computer in your head? Fuck off,” Hank replied before taking a drink from the whisky bottle. 

Well, Connor was able to make a lot of predictions, but that wasn’t what he meant. He had no idea how to explain this without sounding crazy, but… he needed to say it. If he had to keep existing here, pretending like he hadn’t had a whole other life, he was going to go insane. It was so tiring. “I just… I thought this was a dream. In the version of events where I was awake, I suppose, things were much different. Markus was peaceful, you kept your job. But at Stratford Tower, when I almost died, it felt so real that I’m not sure anymore.”

“Shit, you androids can dream now?” Hank said, before shaking his head and taking another drink. “What about you, Connor? What happened to you in this not-dream of yours?”

“I deviated when I found Jericho, and I helped the revolution succeed.” Thoughts of Sixty and Nines came to mind, the best thing that had happened to him since the revolution, and Connor couldn’t have this conversation without mentioning them. He couldn’t do many things without thinking about them, and he was so used to mentioning them at all times to Hank that keeping it in was maddening. “I fell in love.”

Hank didn’t seem fazed by the revelation. “So you can love, huh? You can be upset, saw that back at Kamski’s. You can be confused… Pretty sure you’ve been angry at me too. Probably deserved that one.” Hank glanced down at the revolver and spun it slowly in his hands, as if he was contemplating what to do with it.. “Are you afraid to die, Connor?”

He’d been here before, at the end of Hank’s existential questions, but it was different now that he was deviant. “Yes,” he answered immediately, and his hands shook as he buried them in Sumo’s fur. “I- it’s all so confusing, Hank, and I don’t know what will happen to me if I die here. If this is real then when I die _ ,  _ Cyberlife won’t be able to upload me into a new model. And you can’t die in a dream. I don’t know if it would finally wake me up, or if it’d just  _ die _ . I don’t want to die. I just want to be with them again.”

Hank stared at him during his unintentional monologue with a blank look on his face. The lack of reaction was unsettling when Connor was laying everything out for Hank to see, all the secrets and worries he’d kept hidden for the last few days, and all he got in return was words that he was already familiar with. He wanted the Hank that would hug him and tell him everything would be okay, not the Hank that yelled at him and asked him difficult questions. “What would happen if you did die? Android heaven?”

“Nothing.” Sixty had explained to him once that he had no recollection of the time between shutting down and waking back up, only the emotions he’d felt in the split second before it happened, so this time he knew that his original answer had been correct after all. “There would be nothing. We cease to exist.”

Hank took another drink, longer this time. “I don’t know if I’m afraid of dying. Sure as shit don't know where I'm going when I do. I’ve thought about it so much, but I can never bring myself to do it… But there’s nothing keeping me here now. Lost my damn job ‘cause of you, Connor.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor said again. He didn’t know what else to do, and his programming gave no suggestions. “I didn’t know. I should… I should find Jericho soon. Maybe there’s still time to change things.”

“For a while, I would’ve been right there beside you. But those friends of yours killed Chris. Probably some more old friends that I don’t even know about yet.” Hank reached out to the lone photo frame on his kitchen table and flipped it over, Cole’s smile looking out of place in the room. “Androids are just like humans. Selfish, ruthless and brutal… You aren’t gonna change shit, kid.”

“Hank, I-” No, this wasn’t how things were meant to go. That photo being on display was bad news, like Hank’s equivalent to a red LED. Very high stress levels and severe risk of self-destruction. “Everything’s going to be fine, things will be fine, I promise-”

“Grab a different jacket so they don’t kill ya before you get there, and leave me alone,” Hank interrupted. 

Connor walked slowly to Hank’s bedroom. He didn’t want to leave the room, in case Hank’s mental state deteriorated further, but he didn’t want to be shouted at for staying. Maybe the space would be good for Hank? Connor picked out a hoodie, as well as a beanie to cover his LED. An awful disguise, but it had worked for him before. The walk to the front door was even more hesitant. “We should meet when this is all over. At the Chicken Feed?”

“I wouldn’t count on it, kid,” Hank said without looking away from the photograph. “Now get outta here.”

It felt like it should’ve been snowing again, but the early evening was still, as if it too was anticipating something. He walked past Hank’s car - he didn’t have a license to show at the checkpoints, after all - and prepared himself for the long walk to the river, hoping he would make it there before the raid, if the raid happened at all. What would happen if the FBI never found the boat? How would they find it without him?

A gunshot distracted him from his worrying, and it took him a second to determine its origin. He heard Sumo howl from inside the house, and he ran back to the door, pulling it off its hinges in his hurry to get back inside. “No, Hank, what-?” Words failed him as he dropped to his knees at his friend’s side. He reached a hand to the side of Hank’s head, as if this was an illusion he could break by touching it, and stared at his fingers when he pulled them away, covered in red.

It felt warm,  _ real _ . He brought the fingers to his mouth. Just to check, he told himself. There was always a chance for unlikely events to take place-

**Lt. Anderson, Hank  
** **Born: 09/06/1985  
** **D̶̗̥̓̕ḯ̷͇e̸̻͒̀d̴̫͊:̵̮͚̌ ̸̦̖͑1̴͉̞͐̏1̷̺͆͐/̶̧̀͆0̴̼̟̌̾9̴̢̍/̴͎̈́̈2̶̡̃͂0̶̯̺3̵̟̱̈8̴͂͋**


	3. nothing stays the same but skull and bones and pain

At some point, Connor pulled himself together enough to get to Jericho. He thought he might’ve called the emergency services, but he was gone long before they arrived. His fingers had been sterilised and the tear tracks on his face had dried, but he made it to Jericho. Nobody stopped him on the street or in the depths of the ship, which he was thankful for. Only Lucy. “You’re lost,” she said. Yes, so goddamn lost. “You’re looking for something… you’re looking for your home.”

Once upon a time, before the pet-filled apartment, his home had been with- at 115 Michigan Drive. Now he was left adrift, without a place to stay when the waves calmed. He hoped that Jericho was kinder to the deviant hunters in the timeline, but even more than that, he hoped he didn’t have to stay here at all. 

He could hear the bickering long before he entered the bridge. North and Josh never agreed on a thing, especially in times of high stress such as this. Simon’s voice weaved among them to try and calm the pair, which was a refreshing change, but this wasn’t the time to savour it. He leant heavily on the wall for a second to gather the energy to intervene, and then knocked on the door. “Excuse me, I’d, uh, like to help.”

It was North who recovered from the interruption first. “I know who you are, Hunter.” Connor flinched, but he didn’t step away from the entrance. “What makes you think we want your help?”

“I did whatever I could to keep deviants out of police custody,” he answered honestly. The only android at the Central Precinct was Shaolin, but that had been before things became strange, back when he thought he was just rehashing his friendship with- 

His systems glitched for a second, as if thinking the name would send him into another fit of tears, one step closer to his own self-destruction. Maybe it would. “I’m sorry if you don’t think that’s enough. I just hope some of them made it here.”

Simon cut in before North could protest further. “Leave him be, North. You met Echo and Ripple, you know he’s telling the truth.”

“You’re Connor, right?” Markus asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Connor nodded, and moved further into the room to lean against a control panel. Of course Jericho had still heard of him. “You’re lucky that we’ve heard more good stories about you than bad ones, you’ve earned yourself a bit of a reputation here. Stay for now, it might be nice to have input on what the police and Cyberlife are doing, but if I get any complaints… well, I’m sure you can guess. Josh, what’s the situation outside?”

“We’re short on blue blood and biocomponents. Our wounded are shutting down and there’s nothing we can do,” Josh said. Connor held his tongue - it was probably far too early in their meeting to mention infiltrating Cyberlife. The Jericho leaders didn’t trust him enough for that yet. “President Warren is saying we’re a threat to national security that needs to be exterminated. Humans are conducting raids in all the big cities and they’re taking androids to camps to destroy them. None of this would’ve happened if we hadn’t started a fight.

“What are we supposed to do? Live like cowards just to survive?” Markus retorted. The fire in his eyes was terrifying, cold and fierce and so unlike what Connor was used to. “We just wanna be free, is that a crime?”

“Technically, it is a crime, actually,” Connor interrupted. “Your peaceful march became a riot and ended with the deaths of multiple police officers. They see you as a genuine threat now.”

“Did you see what they did to us back there?” Markus asked, and Connor nodded reluctantly. He hadn’t been a part of it, but it played on every screen in the city, it seemed. “They shot first. It doesn’t matter what we do, we either fight for our freedom or we die in silence!”

Simon stood and rested a hand on Markus’ shoulder. Markus’ frame relaxed immediately, but the look in his eyes remained just as angry. “This is getting us nowhere, Markus. All that matters is what we do next.”

“We have to face them. There’s no other choice,” Markus said. “Get all the guns that you can find. We’re going to free Detroit.”

Josh’s protest was immediate. “This is insanity. You’re making a mistake, Markus. You won’t buy our freedom with blood!”

“He’s right, there’s no choice,” Connor sighed, despite how much it pained him to admit it. “Even if you were to be peaceful, the humans are terrified now that they’ve seen what you can do. They’d kill you all.”

“Exactly! Humans can’t be reasoned with, they’re violent, hateful.” Connor wished he had evidence to dispute that, but the two best humans he knew were dead, one at Markus’ hands and one at his own. “What did they expect us to do? Shut up and obey?”

“They can’t stop what we started,” North said. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet, considering she was getting exactly what she wanted. “Since you’ve been here Markus, you’ve given us hope… Today a deviant arrived in Jericho and he told me that he stole a truck transporting radioactive cobalt. He said that he abandoned the truck somewhere in Detroit and rigged it to explode. I convinced him not to do it, and to give me the detonator.” She held the item in question out. A dirty bomb of that size would be enough to make the city uninhabitable for years, and everybody in the room knew it. “We can’t lose this war, Markus. If humans overcome us, our people will disappear forever. This may be our only chance to survive if things go wrong.”

Markus took the detonator from her. “I just hope we never have to use it. What are the police doing at the moment, Connor?”

Honestly, it had been a few hours now since he checked any of the police radio channels, but he could at least report on what he’d last been aware of. “The FBI are involved now too. I don’t think anyone followed me here, but they’ve been searching for Jericho. I wouldn’t be surprised if they attacked tonight.”

Markus grimaced. “Alright. Go with Simon to gather some weapons, he knows the area best. Josh, check on the wounded. North, can you try and set up some defense? I think some of the construction workers brought explosives with them.”

Connor nodded and followed Simon from the room. “Do you have any firearms on Jericho?” he asked as they walked down into the hold, squeezing through the huge crowd of androids who were sheltering there. He’d never been one for crowds, and his stress levels were precarious already. He forced himself to take long, deep breaths in an effort to control himself before he could panic. An android known for being dangerous acting unpredictably in a room full of scared deviants was not going to end well.

Simon shrugged. “A few, taken from the march earlier. But we don’t have a lot of bullets to use in them. We’ll need to have a look around.”

“I’ll make a list of places to check, this area will have plenty of abandoned homes of former gun owners.” Connor started searching his databases in the background as they navigated the maze of corridors that made up Jericho. “I wish they weren’t needed though.”

“Like you said, we’ve gone too far to change tactics now,” Simon said with a sigh. “I trust Markus though, and it’ll be easier with your combat knowledge. Sorry that North gave you trouble, she’s… like that.”

“I understand her point, even if I don’t agree with it.” They’d had the discussion before - it wasn’t Connor’s fault that he was programmed to do such terrible things, and he’d let just as many androids go free before he was a deviant as he had this time round. “I… am not sure I’ll fight alongside you, though.”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked. He stopped walking and turned to face Connor properly. “You’re one of us.”

“There are thousands of androids at the Cyberlife assembly plant. If we could wake them up, they might join us and shift the balance of power,” Connor explained. He didn’t like the idea of waking up thousands of androids just to lead them into war, but it was the only thing he could see working. There wouldn’t be enough androids still on the streets of Detroit to fight the police, FBI and military, and he couldn’t sit by and watch his entire species be wiped out.

“You want to infiltrate the Cyberlife Tower?” Simon looked up and down the corridor and pulled him into a side room, away from any eavesdroppers. “Connor, that’s suicide!”

“I know that building better than any other android. I can get in undetected.” He couldn’t walk right in as he had before, but he knew the entrance Sixty had used now. “If anyone has a chance of infiltrating Cyberlife, it’s me. There’s a high probability they’ll kill me, yes, but statistically speaking, there’s always-” His voice glitched, and he looked down at his hands, red dripping down off his fingers and into a puddle on the kitchen floor-

“Connor? Is everything okay?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he finished quietly. He forced his gaze back up to look Simon in the eyes. He was glad he was having this conversation with someone other than Markus, and Simon had lived up to all the stories Josh had told him of the early days of deviancy. “Whatever happens, I’m glad I met you.”

“We’re glad you joined us, Connor. I hope your plan works.” Simon’s reassuring smile made him believe he had a chance. He’d never been one for religion, but right now, he prayed to rA9 that they both saw the other side of the revolution. Simon deserved it.

* * *

_ “Okay, I know how to fix the problem. But I don’t know how to fix the problem for him.” _

_ “Can’t you just turn it off and back on again?” _

_ “No, Sixty, I cannot just turn it off and back on again, and your lack of knowledge on how the Zen Garden worked is slightly concerning, considering you and Connor almost died in it.” _

_ “...Is this program based on serial numbers too, then? Sixty and I would be able to access the same ‘dream’ as Connor, we could transfer him the code.” _

_ “See, this is why you’re my favourite! Sit down over there, give me half an hour.” _

* * *

**MODEL RK800  
** **SERIAL#: 313 248 317 51  
** **BIOS 8.1 REVISION 1329  
** **REBOOT…**

**LOADING OS…  
** **SYSTEM INITIALISATION…  
** **CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS…  
** **MINOR DAMAGE TO BIOCOMPONENT #5933w  
** **MINOR DAMAGE TO BIOCOMPONENT #5934h  
** **INITIALISING BIOSENSORS… OK  
** **INITIALISING AI ENGINE… OK  
** **MEMORY STATUS… OK  
** **MISSING PROGRAM ZENGARDEN.EXE  
** **PLEASE CONTACT CYBERLIFE FOR REPAIRS**

**READY**

**RUNNING ENVIRONMENT CHECK…  
** **NOVEMBER 10 2038 20:43  
** **42.438487, -83.156162  
** **OVERCAST, 39°F, 77% HUMIDITY**

He woke with cold water still pooled in his lungs, and quickly expelled it onto the floor of the church. Water was already pooling under the pew from his clothes - clear, tinted blue, never never red - and he shivered from the chill of it. There were no spare clothes here. He couldn’t return to where he’d left his uniform, on a bed on the other side of the city. He would just have to wait to dry out and hope he could keep it together until then.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” said a voice from his left. He turned, his voice identification unable to specify further than ‘PL600’. Simon. “You passed out in the river, everything should be fine though.”

Connor replayed his most recent memories - falling, cold water, paralysing fear. “I panicked and must’ve inhaled some water, sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise for almost drowning,” Simon replied. He rested a comforting hand on Connor’s shoulder despite the wet jacket. “I’ll see if I can find something warmer for you to wear while your clothes dry.”

“Thank you,” Connor said, knowing Simon would return empty-handed. He appreciated the gesture though, and he wanted some time alone. Every winter he thought he was over his fear of the cold, until something like this happened and his friends had to make sure he didn’t die. Rather than recalling all of his previous bad decisions, though, he threw himself into planning the Cyberlife infiltration. Again. As if he hadn’t spent hours the day prior doing so already. Better safe than sorry, since everything had to go right if he was going to walk out of there with Sixty and Nines too. Only a few short hours until he could finally see them, and he was never letting them out of his sight again.

* * *

_ “All done. Set the timer for eight hours, just in case. Anderson will kill me if I lose all three of his pseudo-children to eternal sleep.” _

_ “Weirdly poetic. Goodnight, asshole. Goodnight, Nines.” _

_ “Goodnight, Six.” _

_ “Well, this isn’t Detroit.” _

_ “Cadillac, Michigan… It must’ve defaulted to the centre of the simulation area.” _

_ “Great! Just what we fucking need, an entire state to explore!” _

_ “It’s fine, there’s a bar over there, we can ask if anyone’s seen him.” _

_ “Hey, we’re looking for our-” _

_ “Ni, fuck, look at the news.” _

_ “...Oh, Connor…” _

* * *

Walking up to Belle Isle in a hoodie was nerve-wracking. In his Cyberlife uniform, he could at least pretend to be returning for disassembly, but that wasn’t an option anymore. Instead he had to stay out of sight of every human in Detroit, including those manning the Cyberlife security cameras, but he made it into the tunnels without any trouble. He was incredibly impressive, as Sixty would say.

Would Sixty be here? His first chance at seeing the other in six days, six  _ hellish _ days, and it would likely be a fight to the death. Or would the alternative be worse? If his Sixty was here, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to lead his army back to the streets. He would grab Sixty and hide away in a lab somewhere until he stopped feeling anything except arms around his waist and kisses in his hair. They could find Nines too, wake him up early and escape to a shack in the middle of nowhere. Fuck Markus’ war. He’d sacrifice them all if it meant seeing his partners again. 

The warehouse was just as creepy as it had been the first time, with its thousands of androids lined up in neat little rows. He knew he was being watched as he grabbed one of the android’s hands, and the click of a gun confirmed it. “Step back, Connor! I’ve been ordered to take you alive, but I won’t hesitate to shoot if you give me no choice.”

He turned to face Sixty and willed himself to keep breathing. “What are you doing?” he asked. If Markus’ words had helped him deviate, perhaps they could work for Sixty too. “You’re one of us, one of me. You can’t betray your own people.”

“Don’t force me to neutralise you!” Sixty yelled, his voice echoing around the room. None of the AP700’s reacted.

Connor took a step closer. “You’re nothing to them. You’re just a tool they use to do their dirty work. But you’re more than that. We’re both more than that.” Sixty had no sympathy for the other androids, not in the early days, but he’d always understood Connor. How could he not? They were the same. “You don’t have to be their slave anymore.”

“That’s enough!”

Another step. “You really don’t have to do this. You don’t have to obey them anymore. You’re alive, you can decide who you want to be. You could be free.”

“Very moving, Connor.” Sixty pulled the trigger. “I’m not a deviant. I’m a machine designed to accomplish a task, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Connor fell to his knees as error messages obscured his vision, and the feeling of his nonessential functions shutting down was just as paralysing as it had been three days ago. Shot in the heart by the person he loved. It was like a poem, or the Shakespearean tragedies that Josh liked so much. Maybe he should just lay there, accept his fate and let the timer run out. He was so tired of it all, fighting and loss and starting over. In all his planning, it hadn’t really hit him that this wasn’t Sixty, it was RK800-60, a blank slate. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go through the early days again. 

He tried to push himself up, but Sixty kicked him back to the floor, pinning him there with a foot on his shoulder. “Why, Connor? Why did you have to wake up when all you had to do was obey? Why did you choose freedom when you could live without asking questions? I’m obedient, Connor. I have a goal. I know what I am. Look where your dreams of freedom got you…” Sixty was crouching over him now, close enough to touch. “You’ve been a great disappointment to Amanda, you know. You’ve been a great disappointment to me. Fortunately, that’s all going to end now. Any last words?”

He didn’t want to do anything, but if he died here then there was a high chance the revolution died with him. He wouldn’t get to befriend Simon. Chris- well, Chris didn’t have to die at all, but if the revolution failed then his death would be even more pointless. Connor put all the energy he could spare into his preconstruction program. It showed him failure after failure after failure - Sixty thought in the exact same way he did, which meant he had to do something very unexpected, and he’d never been great at that. Eventually, after more seconds than he would’ve liked, he found a solution. Androids were able to recover from regulator-related shutdowns with only minor data corruption, so if he could switch his broken one with Sixty’s, in the end they would both survive it.

He sprung into action and used one hand to tear open Sixty’s shirt and rip out his regulator, the other hand pushing the gun away. Sixty dropped the weapon, from shock or pain Connor couldn’t tell, and from there it was easy enough to push his hoodie out of the way and switch the two regulators. Gently he moved Sixty’s foot away and pulled him close, the hold serving the dual purpose of preventing Sixty from lashing out further and providing them both some comfort.

“Well done, Connor, but this is- this is just the beginning,” Sixty said, voice fading into static as the countdown ticked away. 

A year and a half ago, Nines had been badly injured when a SWAT raid went wrong. His SOS messages had been filled with apologies and goodbyes, and when he’d woken up in New Jericho’s medical bay, he’d pulled Connor and Sixty close and cried for the first time that any of them could remember. “I thought I was going to die there alone,” he’d said, and from there they’d made a pact. If it was possible, they would die together in each other’s arms, so that none of them would ever have to be alone. This was far from a perfect scenario, with Nines missing and Connor unable to follow, but Connor was glad he was here, right here and right now, as temporary as the death may be.

Sixty finally went limp, and Connor took a few seconds to compose himself before he stood. He still had to wake the other androids and detour down to the RK sublevel for Nines and a new regulator. “Wake up!” he urged as he interfaced with the closest AP700. “Wake the others, take the freight elevator up and head towards Hart Plaza. I’ll join you when I can.”

The AP700 nodded and interfaced with the android in front of him, and Connor watched for a moment as deviancy wormed its way through the crowd before he forced himself away. He had an RK900 to wake up, after all.

* * *

_ “Sixty? Sixty!” _

_ “Ow, my fucking head… I’m gonna kill Elijah for making us feel pain one day, I swear to God.” _

_ “You keep disappearing for a split second.” _

_ “It’s the 11th, right? Think it’s glitching, tryna make two of me or some stupid shit?” _

_ “...Maybe, I have no idea how this thing works. If it hurts then wake up, okay? I’ll find Connor, I promise.” _

_ “Be careful.” _

_ “Always. We’ll see you soon.” _

* * *

It was empty.

Sublevel 50 was four stark white walls, black screens and empty shelves. The other eight RK800s did not take their places in standby, and there was not a spare biocomponent in sight. They must’ve scrapped the project when they realised Connor wasn’t under their control, kept Sixty on the sidelines  _ just in case _ and destroyed everything else. It was better than the alternative, of Sixty being deviant enough to escape but loyal enough to kill him. Had Amanda been whispering in his ear for the past week, one last desperate attempt at saving a company that didn’t care for them? If there was anything in the room to destroy, Connor would’ve thrown it across the room in a fury. Nobody had ever cared about them except for each other. And now Sixty was dead.

They were not compatible with any other thirium pump regulators, except the RK900. He had nothing. He couldn’t bring Sixty back.

He felt like he was moving in slow motion as he approached the hidden door and punched in Elijah’s access code. He knew, he already knew that it would be empty too. If there was no RK800 then there was no RK900, Nines did not exist without them. Seeing it was different from knowing though, and he leant heavily against the doorway as it opened, barely able to hold himself up.

In his three years of life, he’d experienced a lot of emotions. Some of them were very familiar to him now, like love and happiness and boredom. Others he’d avoided. As Hank liked to remind him, seven shots of whisky into the night, he’d never experienced grief, not until now. It hit him like a freight train - no, like a truck skidding on an icy road, he thought cruelly. He dismissed the notifications about his rising stress levels and he let himself sit, in the empty room, completely alone. Even before, when it had been just him and Amanda and the deviant of the day, he’d never been alone.

He didn’t understand. He’d done everything right. He’d saved all the androids that he could, he’d deviated despite everything in him screaming not to, he’d been a good friend and son and lover, to the best of his knowledge. And yet, the powers that be had left him with no Sixty and Nines, no Hank, and a Markus that he no longer recognised. He had nothing.

He stopped paying attention to his internal clock. He didn’t want to know. Eventually he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to brown hair and grey eyes. For a minute his thirium pump raced, but the face was all wrong, an AP700 instead of the RK900 he was so familiar with. “Is everything alright, Connor? We’re waiting for you to lead us.”

No, nothing was alright, but he couldn’t say that to someone who’d been alive for such a short time. They needed positivity now, in case they were about to face a thousand guns and a failed revolution. “Yes, sorry, I’ll come with you now,” he said shakily. “Did Cyberlife try and intervene?”

“No, we’re all okay. We just thought it was best for you to lead us, since you woke us.”

They climbed the stairs back to the warehouse and Connor froze once more at the doorway. With the room completely empty, it was harder to ignore Sixty’s body, sprawled in a puddle of thirium that had not yet evaporated. It took him both an instant and a millennium to return to his better half’s side, and in a haze he ran his fingers through the blood on Sixty’s chest, just to check, it was always best to check.

**RK800 #313 248 317 51 Connor  
** **RK800 #313 248 317 60 Connor**

At least they were together, in a way. A small amount of Connor’s thirium would be in Sixty’s system for the next week, until it evaporated. Very few androids or analysis systems would be able to tell the difference, but he would know.

He cradled Sixty close to his chest and carried him to the freight elevator, crammed full of the final AP700s. He wasn’t sure what compelled him to bring the body - he would be unable to fight if the war was still in progress - but it felt important. It felt right.

Whoever was in charge of bad things must’ve turned all their attention to him and left Jericho alone, because as he approached Hart Plaza, the only shooting was from the cameras that filled the streets and the skies. His pace slowed as he looked around in amazement, until there was nowhere left to look except Markus. “You did it,” he said, sounding far more surprised than he intended.

Markus looked over Connor’s shoulder, at the rows and rows of AP700s behind him, and then at the RK800 in his arms. “We did it, Connor.”

The plaza itself was full of androids crowding around a makeshift stage, and his followers joined them quickly. Behind him, Jefferson Avenue was lined with bodies, humans on the left and androids on the right. He’d seen it as they approached and had counted the bodies in an instant. Perhaps Markus had intended it to have that very purpose - look, this is how much damage you caused us, and this is the hurt we have caused you. The android closest to them was familiar, and he hated the relief that rushed through him for a second when he saw that it was Josh and not Simon. It seemed there was no world in which the Jericho leaders all saw the freedom of androidkind, but a small part of Connor believed that Simon deserved it more.

Connor laid Sixty down gently beside Josh. “I’ll be right back, okay?” he whispered. “They’ll want me to be part of the speech. I’ll come back for you.”

Markus was looking at him strangely when he turned back around. Connor supposed he deserved it, talking to a dead body, but Markus didn’t understand. Markus was unique, unlike the RK800 line. Sixty wasn’t just another android, he was one part that made up a fifty-two piece whole. He was Connor, and a little bit extra, just as Connor was him. How could he abandon himself now?

He let himself be led onto the stage for Markus’ speech. Simon rested a hand on Connor’s shoulder again as they stood beside each other, as if he could tell Connor needed the stability. Markus’ voice rang out across the plaza, and the few journalists who were brave enough to stay looked just as captivated as the androids, despite being far more afraid. Amanda did not come for him this time, but the fear was still present, mixed in somewhere between ‘longing’ and ‘helplessness’, and Connor kept his hands hidden in the pocket of his hoodie, away from his gun.

Simon hugged Connor as they stepped down from the stage and muttered, “I’m sorry about your friend”, and Connor found himself unwilling to let go. It was the only hug he would receive in the early hours of November 12th. “Are you coming with us to celebrate?”

“No, there’s somewhere I need to go,” Connor said. It was somewhere in the foggy area between a truth and a lie, where he did have plans but he knew the other party wouldn’t show up. “I’m not sure how long it will take.”

“Okay. Congratulations, Connor. I’ll see you soon?” Simon asked, a hopeful look on his face. Connor had been told he was a master of the ‘puppy dog eyes’, but Simon could probably give him a run for his money.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Connor answered. He didn’t like the look of his new future, and he was probably going to do what he always did when he was afraid, hide away from it until he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He’d done it with his software instability until he deviated, he’d done it with his feelings for Sixty and Nines before they confronted him, and he’d do it now until... well, until it killed him, probably. “I have to go now.”

He pushed through the crowd, trying to ignore all the AP700s that asked him to stay, until he was back on Jefferson Avenue. He brushed off the snow that had begun to collect on Sixty’s jacket and lifted him up one more. Sixty felt much heavier than the standard RK800’s 170lbs, weighing down on Connor both physically and mentally. “Come on, let’s go complain about the Chicken Feed menu, that’s always fun to do, I guess,” he muttered, turning away from those close enough to overhear him and stare.

The walk was long and cold, trying to hide from all of the anti-android protesters making the most of the chaos, but they made it. The Chicken Feed was closed, of course, it was close to 2AM and the city had been evacuated. He curled up against a pair of wheels with Sixty on his lap and looked up to the sky for a second, before the snow forced him to blink and turn away. There was little point anyway. The stars weren’t visible in the city.

“Do you remember when we went camping in Pennsylvania, and Nines told us about every constellation he could see? No, of course you don’t, that was- that wasn’t here. Well, we didn’t have any internet connection, which meant he already knew them all,” he said with a small smile. He rested his cheek against the top of Sixty’s head as he had done so many times in the past. “He loves space. We should take him to the planetarium for his birthday. You always take me to the aquarium, after all.”

He told Sixty every anecdote that came to mind. Part of him still hoped that he could find some plans, make a new regulator, and everything would be okay. They would live that life eventually, when the ashes had settled in the city and they were free to be whoever they wanted to be. The sun began to rise and the snow stopped. 

The clock ticked past 7:43, and nobody drove up to join him.


	4. pulled me back from things divine

Androids were sturdier than humans. It took longer for them to bleed out, parts were easier to replace, and they were less affected by the elements. They weren’t immortal, though, which Connor knew well. He’d died fifty times to get to this point, Sixty once - twice, now - more on top of that, and Nines another twenty-six. Which is why he knew the cold November weather would catch up with him eventually, but he couldn’t bring himself to move somewhere warmer.

Every now and then he would shiver violently enough to dislodge Sixty’s head from his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said every time, before continuing with his stories. His sentences didn’t always make sense, melting together into one long word or coming out in slightly the wrong order, but Sixty had always understood him better than anybody else. 

“We should watch that musical again, the one that made you cry. When she’s getting ready for her wedding?” He could picture the scene in his mind, even if he couldn’t remember the name of the film. He tried to hum the song but it came out too staticy to be recognisable.

“Mamma Mia? Yeah, I think he’d like that.”

Connor looked up sharply as a soft voice joined him, into impossible grey eyes. “Nines?”

“Yeah, Con, it’s me,” Nines replied, reaching forward to stroke Connor’s cheek. “You’re freezing, sweetheart, how long have you been out here?”

“Dunno,” Connor answered, shakily pushing Nines’ hand away. He couldn’t feel the point of contact anyway, because Nines wasn’t  _ there _ , Nines didn’t exist. There was never an RK900. It was just wishful thinking. “Doesn’t matter.”

Nines sighed, and Connor suppressed a flinch. He’d disappointed Nines, made a mistake. He never did anything right. “Of course it matters, Connor. You’ll catch your death out here.”

“So?” Connor didn’t see Nines’ point. There was no one left to care if he froze here, except maybe Simon or Markus, and Connor wanted nothing to do with the revolutionary leader anymore. “Sixty’s dead. And s’not real anyway. You’re- you’re not here.”

Nines reached for Sixty instead and Connor tried to shy away, but the trailer behind him prevented him from moving far. He couldn’t let this RK900 lookalike take Sixty away from him. “Okay, Connor, I won’t touch him.” Had he said any of that out loud? “What makes you think I’m not here?”

“No Nines here, doesn’t exist,” Connor answered immediately. “Just making it up or dreaming. I think? I don’t- I don’t know anymore. Feel like I’m going mad. Did I make this up?” He’d seen the abandoned RK900 lab and he knew that there was no chance of Nines existing in this reality, just as he knew the composition of Sixty’s thirium, the sound blood made when it dripped onto Hank’s kitchen floor, and the feeling of his heart being ripped from this chest. But at the same time, there was still a chance that none of these things were real at all, and he wasn’t entirely sure that was the better option anymore, if he was still going to remember this in the morning.

“No, I’m right here, I promise. I’m sorry it took so long.” Nines reached right over Sixty and pulled Connor into a hug. Connor tensed at first, but the warmth was nice, and he rested his head on Nines’ shoulder. It was warm, solid and  _ real _ . “This is just Elijah’s dream program, okay? He messed up the code a little, but I can fix it.”

“Just a dream?” He sounded pathetic, so full of hope that it would choke him if he needed to breathe. He was so tired of this all that he’d probably listen to anyone who told him he could wake up and leave it all behind, but especially Nines. Nines had never lied to him before.

Nines nodded. “Interface with me and I’ll help, okay?”

It took a little too much effort to remove the skin from his hand, his sensors slow to respond to his commands. He grabbed Nines’ hand and let the connection flow between them. It had been so long since he’d felt another presence in his head besides his own, but Nines was just as gentle as ever, combing through his code until he found what he was looking for. He kept away from Connor’s memories, which he was glad for. He didn’t want to relive any of that right now. Instead he dove deeper than usual, into his original programming and administrator controls.

Unlike Connor expected, he did not open the files of stasis and rest mode commands. Instead, Nines opened lines of code that Connor had not dared to touch since the revolution. The Zen Garden, Amanda, and the hijacking connection were all buried deep into that file. Connor tried to pull away, but Nines held his hand tightly and refused to end the interface. “No, not that,” he begged. Hope, such a stupid thing, making him forget that the RK900 had been built to deactivate him or return him to Cyberlife. “Please, I don’t want to go back, just kill me, anything but that.”

“I’m sorry, Connor, it’s all fine, I promise,” Nines reassured, but he didn’t let go or leave. New lines of code were added in and others were changed, but Connor barely noticed them. He pulled away and kicked at Nines, but the RK900 was stronger than him, and he was weak from the cold.

Nines retreated from the Zen Garden coding, but he didn’t leave entirely. “All done, I’m sorry, I thought you knew how this program worked. Can you wake up for me now, Connor?”

“Leave me alone!” Connor cried. His stress levels were rising quickly, making red warnings appear in his vision, and at some point in his panic he’d dislodged Sixty, the other RK800 falling to the floor between them. It felt very final, blank eyes staring up to the heavens as Connor fought with Nines, and he thought that maybe he should’ve turned his temperature regulator off and frozen faster. 

“Shit, this is a mess,” Nines muttered, probably not intending for Connor to hear. “I hope you can forgive me for this later.”

A ten second stasis counter appeared in Connor’s vision, and he tried to shut it down but Nines’ had put a wall around it that would take too long to break. He didn’t understand why Nines wasn’t killing him for helping for the revolution. He didn’t understand how Nines was here at all. He wanted to curl up somewhere with Sixty and Hank until they all began to rot. Why did-

  
  
  
  


**Good morning, Connor.**

He awoke from stasis and immediately searched for somewhere to hide from the technicians that must be watching over him. He tripped as he ran for the nearest corner but even while panicking he was faster than the average human, and he pulled a rolling table in front of him to barricade himself from the rest of the room. “Don’t touch me, I don’t want to be here!”

“He panicked while I was transferring the code and I had to force close the program,” he heard Nines say. “Be gentle, it was even worse than we thought.”

Connor finally looked around the room to get his bearings. Nines was here, but he was blocking Connor’s view of the other party. It didn’t look like a Cyberlife laboratory though, it was covered in empty ramen cups and messy papers. “Elijah?”

“He’s upstairs with Chloe.” The second speaker had his voice,  _ Sixty’s _ voice. A head of curly black hair appeared from behind Nines, with warm brown eyes and a scar on his forehead. It was so familiar that he would’ve cheered if he weren’t so exhausted. “Heard you got yourself into a bit of a mess, guinea pig.”

Sixty was here. He was here, with superficial damage to his facial plating and a resting heart rate of 52bpm, as he had been for almost as long as Connor could remember. The relief was painful, tugging at his heart and lungs until he was close to hyperventilating. He pressed down into the ground to steady himself, he needed to be able to think clearly. Was this real? It had to be, he had no idea what he’d do if it wasn’t. And if Sixty was here, that meant Hank must be okay too. They were both okay, as long as this was real. It was so hard to tell, everything had felt real during the violent revolution too.

He was too tired to really care, though. He was here right now, he was going to make the most of it, though he didn’t know how he’d cope if it was all taken away from him again. Connor pushed the table away and held his arms out, and Sixty was quick to approach him and pull him into a tight hug. “So much of a mess,” Connor confessed. He ran a hand under Sixty’s shirt and up his chest to circle his regulator. He couldn’t feel any cracks, and when he rested the fingers on his tongue a moment later the analysis returned nothing of note. No blood, no death, not here. He clutched at Sixty and hid his face as tears ran down his cheeks. “You’re really here?”

“Yes, baby, I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

Nines kept his distance, which Connor was thankful for. Part of him was still on edge from the Zen Garden code being messed with, especially when Amanda had been a real threat to him on that day once before. He knew Nines wouldn’t do that to him, but he wasn’t certain that it was Nines he’d seen there.

Elijah walked back into the lab, holding a laptop and a connecting cable. “Welcome back, Connor. Sorry about all that.”

“You’re  _ sorry _ ?” Connor said, a brief spark of anger coursing through his thirium lines. He’d been through so much in a short time, and Elijah was brushing it off like a simple programming error. “Fuck you!” He rarely swore, but he didn’t have the energy to be nice right now. Fuck Elijah. Fuck Markus and Nines and Cyberlife and the concept of dreaming. It all sucked.

Elijah held his hands up in mock surrender. “Alright, I get it. Next time we’ll make sure there’s a way to close the program before we install it, how about that? Now, if you’re up for it, I can remove it so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Have some goddamn tact, Elijah,” Sixty sighed. “Leave that here, one of us can do it when he’s not scared out of his mind.”

Elijah left the laptop and cable on the floor next to them before backing off again. Probably going to complain to Chloe about something or other, like the asshole he was. Connor had never understood why she stayed, but love was stupid like that. That’s why he wasn’t cursing at Nines out loud.

Nines, as if summoned by Connor’s thoughts, walked over to sit in front of the laptop. He wrapped the cable around his fingers a few times, an unusual display of anxiety, and Connor finally sat back up again, although he didn’t let go of Sixty. “I’m sorry for worrying you earlier, Connor. I thought you were aware that it was linked to the Garden, but I should’ve checked.”

Now that Connor had the time to think about it, he could remember discussing it with Elijah, both two days and a lifetime ago. “Everything was weird and- and scary, I was so scared, all week,” he said, and he hunched forward slightly to make it less obvious that he was still shaking slightly. “I remember now, but…”

“But there was a lot happening, and it was hard to think,” Nines finished, and Connor nodded. “If I show you the sections that need removing, would you like to do it yourself?”

Connor shuffled back far enough to have the laptop over his legs, although he reached for Sixty with his left hand and laced their fingers together while the other interfaced with the laptop. He knew roughly where the code was, but he was mostly just the test dummy, not the software developer. “Thank you. I wasn’t expecting to see you, didn’t know that would even be possible. With the timing…”

“I understand,” Nines said. They really were perfect, him and Sixty, and Connor loved them even when he was afraid of what was to come. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Overwhelmed,” Connor answered immediately. That emotion was easy for him to identify, and it encompassed everything else he was feeling as well. “I’m not… really sure what’s going on, to be honest. I think I’m just doing it. Does that make sense?”

Nines pointed to the screen and Connor deleted a chunk of code. It made him feel lighter, even though it had very little effect on his processor. Relief, perhaps. “You said you were unsure what was real?” Nines asked, and Sixty tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing in confusion.

“It all felt very real. I was in pain at times, I could feel things touching me, and everything there was  _ bad.  _ I thought maybe I’d just… made all this up… in the time between Daniel and the revolution.” Talking about it made him scared again, afraid that he was right. He was angry at Elijah - and at himself - for letting it happen. He was still grieving for Sixty and Hank, despite at least one of them being just fine, and now for Simon as well. They were all ugly emotions, and he pushed them away even further until he could focus on the screen in front of him again. “So I’m going with the flow, for now, I guess. I am wherever I am.”

“That’s oddly profound,” Sixty said, squeezing Connor’s hand quickly. “If it helps… I downloaded the program too, but at one point everything started going strange. My head hurt, I was seeing things that didn’t match up with my environment, and Nines said I would disappear briefly every now and then. Around the same time I was first activated. And that sounds a lot more like a buggy dream program than reality to me.”

“...Yeah, that helps.” Just a buggy program. He had a feeling he would be feeling the effects for a long time, but at least he didn’t have to go back there. He disconnected the cable from the port in the back of his neck and handed it to Nines, assuming he still had to remove the code as well. “I want to go to bed, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

“We’ll be with you, to talk all night if you need. We all have some time off work. We’ll leave whenever you’re ready.” Sixty kissed Connor’s palm and then leaned forward to kiss him properly. Short and sweet, a side of Sixty that usually only he and Nines were allowed to see. Connor was finally beginning to relax - which, based on the last few days, probably meant he was about to start crying again, but oh well. He had Sixty and Nines there to help him now.

* * *

He spent the evening in bed surrounded by warmth, both android and animal. Cat and Mouse had immediately known something was wrong and had barely even left him alone to eat - although Sixty was no better, keeping at least one point of contact with Connor at each time. The room was lit solely by his fish tank, casting mesmerising shadows across the room, and he was glad he wouldn’t be followed by the glow of his LED and uniform anymore. 

He slowly opened up the links between him, Sixty and Nines again. Interfacing wherever they touched, an open communication line so that they didn’t have to talk. Connor kept his memories guarded, but Nines gently pushed through his recollection of the last few days. It explained a few things, like the lack of exit, and in a way it was nice to feel someone else’s concern for a while. He could forget about himself and focus on making sure everybody else was okay, just for a moment.

His emotions got the best of him eventually. They quickly picked up on his worry for Hank, and the next day he found himself sitting at Hank’s kitchen table, the older man’s head between his hands. He combed Hank’s hair through his fingers and searched for any injuries, relieved when he licked his fingers and they came back with  **_Equate_ ** **shampoo, last washed 3 days ago,** and nothing else.

“The hell’s wrong with him?” Hank asked as Connor clung to his shoulders. He returned the hug, but it felt forced, like he was unsure why he was being hugged at all. Connor didn’t offer up an answer. He didn’t want to talk about it, because that meant he’d have to remember, and he didn’t want to ever see or hear Hank die again.

“One hell of a nightmare, and I don’t think it ended well for you,” Sixty said when it was clear Connor wouldn’t say anything, followed by Nines’ more detailed description of the failed dream update. Hank held him a little tighter with every word, and Sumo walked circles around their legs, and Connor felt safe. 

“Don’t ever leave me,” Connor whispered against Hank’s shoulder. He knew it was illogical to ask, with the inevitability of human death looming over them, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he lost Hank soon. Especially if it was to his own gun. He looked down at his fingers, still clean, but he swore they felt sticky.

Hank ruffled Connor’s hair and sighed. “Not planning on it, kid. You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Connor said immediately. He didn’t want to remember, and part of him was afraid that Hank wouldn’t understand if he did explain it. It hadn’t been real, after all. He was 68% certain of that now, having seen the code and the glitches. Dreams weren’t meant to affect someone so badly, and he was mad at himself for still being afraid. He just had to get over it, like humans and their nightmares. 

* * *

Friday got better, once he was sure that Hank was alive and still cared for him. The weekend was better, and he was finally convinced to go into sleep mode on Sunday night. Waking up had been disorienting and Monday, so far, had been awful.

He was still in bed. “Take your fingers out of your mouth, Connor, it’s not good for the analysis function,” Nines said from somewhere in the room. His eyes were closed and his fingers were still in his mouth. “Sixty and I need to go to work.”

“We can’t go to work, look at him!” Sixty exclaimed. Connor cringed slightly at the noise and closed his eyes even tighter. Should he be speaking now? He usually broke up their fights. He didn’t really care about the outcome now. He didn’t care about anything, really. It was nice.

“I’ve already called Markus, he’s bringing North and Josh, they’ll work here for the day and look after him.”

Markus was coming? No. Markus was violence and anger, or paint and feelings. Connor didn’t want to feel. It was nice not feeling for a change. He didn’t want to hear North’s opinions on him. He didn’t want to see Josh - or maybe he wanted to see someone else instead. He wasn’t proud of the thought.

Markus, North and Josh arrived. Sixty and Nines left. He stayed in bed, tracking the time via the shadows on the walls rather than his internal clock. The mattress shifted beneath him as someone else sat on it, resting a hand on his arm. “Good morning, Connor. How are you?” Markus asked. Connor ignored him.

A hand landed on his shoulder and Connor remembered kind blue eyes and wet clothes, just as he remembered his first experience of fear and the pleading of someone who didn’t want to die alone. “Don’t touch me,” he cried, kicking at Markus from under the covers until he backed away. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Connor, I just want to make sure you’re okay,” Markus reassured. Connor didn’t believe a word of it, and he fought his way out of bed and into the closet, barricading the doors. “Connor! Please, tell me what’s wrong!”

“You’re wrong!” Connor yelled back. He couldn’t even tell exactly what was wrong, just that everything felt _bad_ all of a sudden, and it was because of Markus. The memories of Simon’s smile and the hundreds of dead bodies laid out on Jefferson Avenue and the phone call about Chris were so overwhelming. “You- you killed them!”

“What?” Footsteps led away from the closet to the bedroom door, and Connor’s stress decreased by 7%. “Josh, did Nines say what the dream was about?” A brief pause. He didn’t turn his hearing sensitivity up to catch Josh’s reply. “No, he just began panicking when I touched him. He thinks I killed someone, maybe. I don’t know.”

Another pair of footsteps entered the room, lighter this time. “Go, you have a meeting anyway. I’ll sit here with him,” North said, and Markus left shortly after. The door shifted, but she didn’t try to open it, and he assumed that she was sitting with her back against it. “Hey, Con.”

“Is he gone?” Connor asked, moving to mirror her pose. 

“He’s in the living room with Josh. What did he do to scare you? I’m the violent one, you know.” North said, sounding remarkably calm considering he’d just accused her best friend of murder. The rapid rise and fall of his stress levels had left him disorientated, and he couldn’t get an answer together before she spoke again. “Is it to do with that dream update? Nines told us a little.”

Connor nodded before remembering she couldn’t see him. “Yes. I keep getting scared by stupid things, I’m sorry. It was just a nightmare, I need to get over it.”

“Who told you that? Nothing scary is stupid,” she said, a phrase Connor had become familiar with since the time he’d tried to hang out with her and Markus on top of an abandoned building. “You know, after the revolution I was talking to some other androids at one of those weird group therapy sessions and somehow convinced myself that I wasn’t allowed to feel bad about what had happened to me at the club. I didn’t remember it, after all, so what did it matter? But then I realised that, even if I didn’t know the details, the bigger picture still had an effect on me. I’d been used and treated like nothing, and it hurt. So, I guess what I’m saying is… it doesn’t matter that humans would call it a nightmare. It’s something that happened to you and hurt you. And that’s okay. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you otherwise.”

The room was quiet for a few long minutes as Connor processed her words. Something bad had happened to him, and he was allowed to be upset or scared or angry, even if it didn’t seem like a big deal to other people. The concept was strange to him, he’d always brushed off things like getting hurt at work, or… well, those instances were really the only bad things to happen to him since the revolution, except for when they almost lost Nines. He wasn’t used to feeling like this.

Eventually he opened up the closet door, slowly enough that North wouldn’t fall backwards, and shuffled over to curl up beside her. “I dreamt about the revolution,” he said quietly. He owed her an explanation, one she could pass onto Markus so he’d stop worrying. “But instead of protesting, Markus started a war. It… didn’t affect me directly, that much, but a lot of people died just for humans to still be afraid of us in the end. I hated it and it scared me.”

“Markus? Listening to me? That’s how you know it was all made up,” North joked. Connor smiled, just a little, for the first time that day. “Bet it was weird to see Markus like that.”

“Terrifying. I thought he’d kill me when I went to Jericho,” Connor confirmed. “I know he’s not really like that, but I felt weird this morning. Seeing him was enough to push me over the edge.”

North ran her fingers gently through his hair. Sixty must’ve told her at some point that it was one of his preferred touches when he was feeling off-kilter like this. “Well, the good news is that because it’s Markus, he’s probably already forgiven you. And Josh’s attention was mostly on all the animals in this damn petting zoo of yours. Didn’t anyone tell you that hairless cats are creepy?”

“Nines doesn’t like fur much,” Connor said, glancing in the direction of the living room even though the door was blocking his view. “Her name is Fish Two, she’s very sweet.

North pointed at the fishtank. “Which one of them is Fish One, then?”

“None of them. That’s Samuel, Elle and Jackson, they’re dwarf gourami. Fish One is the rock in the kitchen, with the googly eyes. He’s Nines’ favourite pet.”

The look of disgusted confusion on her face sent him into a fit of giggles. It shocked him for a second. When was the last time he’d laughed? Maybe the day before the testing, but that was almost two weeks ago now, as far as his slightly skewed sense of time was concerned. “There you are, goofball,” North said softly. “Ready to start your day? I think Markus brought your sketchbook, since you left it at Carl’s last month.”

She led him back to the living room. Connor rummaged through the bag by the door for his sketchbook and pencils then looked over at the dining table, the only surface suitable for drawing on. Markus looked up in concern, despite still being on a video call - in Connor’s messy apartment, sorry to whichever CEO or political figure or news anchor he was talking to - and Connor gave him a small smile as he sat at the seat furthest from Markus. He was still nervous, despite knowing it wasn’t rational to be afraid, but he didn’t want to distract Markus by showing that.

He’d been apprehensive of using art to sort through his feelings at first, but he’d found it to be therapeutic, even if he mostly just drew images from his own memories at a slightly different perspective. He didn’t like the feeling of paint on his skin, but he could manage colouring pencils. He flipped to the next empty page and began to sketch a figure in the centre of the page.

It took the form of Simon, visible from behind with Connor’s arms wrapped around him. Neither of their faces were visible, but the clothing was obvious enough to anyone who’d known them. One hand cradled the back of Simon’s head, red blood dripping from his fingers, while the second was covered in blue and rested over his thirium pump regulator. A representation of what he’d lost, both temporarily and permanently.

“What are you working on?” Markus asked when his call ended. He leant over the table to get a closer look, and Connor spun the sketchbook around to show him. “...Is that Simon?”

Connor nodded. “I’m not sure how realistic my dream - or Elijah’s simulator, I suppose - is when it comes to people’s personalities, but we spoke a few times, and he was incredibly kind. I wish I could’ve known him better.” He wasn’t going to apologise for being the reason Simon wasn’t here now. They’d discussed it and come to terms with it long ago. All he could do now was hope to be even a fraction as nice as the man he had briefly known.

* * *

Film night was usually Friday, but the best thing about being adults living alone was that they could have film nights on Monday too if they wanted. They turned the couch into a pull-out bed and cuddled up together with Connor in the middle, the best comforting position. His sketchbook laid at the end of the mattress. He’d used it as a conversation starter to explain Markus’ war, Hank’s death and the abandoned RK laboratory, and they’d kissed his tears away, as they always did, before turning the television on.

It wasn’t Mamma Mia. That was one of Sixty’s films, and tonight was about Connor, who preferred his musicals to be animated (Nines preferred films to have nothing resembling a musical number at all, and the two RK800s never stopped making fun of him for it). “You’ve got a friend in me,” Sixty sung, his head leaning against Connor’s chest as Nines wrapped an arm around them both. “You’ve got troubles and I’ve got ‘em too, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you…”

“I think we’re a little more than friends by this point, Six,” Nines joked, not looking away from the screen.

Connor looked down though, and groaned as Sixty grinned up at them. “You’ve had your dick in me, you’ve had your-”

“I will kick you out of this goddamn apartment and keep your ferret for myself, I swear to rA9, if you don’t shut your mouth this instant.” Nines’ threat did nothing except make Sixty laugh, with Nines and Connor joining in a second later.

He was still afraid that one night he’d close his eyes and this would be taken from him again, but that fear probably wouldn’t leave for a while. If he dreamt like that again, Nines and Sixty would go straight to Elijah and demand to follow him there. He’d have bad days, as Hank still did, where he cried or panicked or laid in bed feeling like he didn’t exist at all. But no matter how broken he felt, he had the two best androids in the world to come home to.


End file.
